[CONTEST]: Seattle Kraken Expansion Picks [30]

[2014olympicgold]

I think Seattle drafted thinking about future success.

My theory is Seattle understands their city will embrace a bad team for a few yrs, so they decided to draft players with decent deals and keep cap space free for forwards in the future. There will be a time when Seattle can just offer more than what other teams can for a FA due to no one else having space. They have a good city, brand new arena, no state tax. I think they can attract FA, it's just a matter of getting that first player to attract others.

Vegas needed to draft, trade, and sign for instant success to get the fanbase excited.

[Pengwin7]

So, question: Is there a reasonable chance that this is an intentional “going for the 2022 draft lottery” story? 2022 is reportedly much stronger than 2021, and Francis may be planning to have 3 picks in the first 10. Sure looks like Tanking at the draft, then hoping to flip his best for picks.

(my 25k post)
Very reasonable.
Very, very reasonable.

Especially since... the NHL lottery was re-adjusted... so there's only lottery for the top 2 picks now, right?
So the team that finishes LAST... gets... a #3 pick... at worst.
And in the 2022 draft... that's one of Brad Lambert of Matthew Savoie. (Shane Wright likely to the winner of the lottery).
Seattle's team right now is right there with Buffalo & Detroit & Columbus - probably worse than those. It's bad, IMO... not enough scoring.
The other three teams are in the East... so their conference mix-schedule should give them a few wins.
Seattle just has to get pasted (hopefully) by the Western bottom-dwellers of LA, SJ, ANA.

re: Roster
I like Gourde, but he's a solid C2, or high-end C3. Maybe they will still sign up Danault... who is a high-end C2.
It's a dynamic team if they have C2 Danault, C3 Gourde, and can find... somehow... a dynamic future C1.

So... looking at Seattle's picks... they've signed guys that give them term beyond ONE year.
And they just signed defensemen for 4 & 5-years: Oleksiak and Larsson.
Focusing on D... because they'll be drafting a forward at #2 this year (Beniers - a future NHL C2?) and a forward at #1/#2/#3 next year, IF they are bad enough!.

So... they have great young forwards coming to them.


Personally - I think you are right on.
I think Francis & Seattle know exactly what will fall in their lap.

On the record, Francis & co will dress it up as "cap flexibility" or "a group of guys that will mesh together"...
But really... it's the 2022 draft, IMO.
[They, VERY OBVIOUSLY, could've drafted a higher-end, more dynamic team for 2021-22.]

I think you nailed it... and some REP coming your way.
(And yes - people will say "It's important to be competitive off the start...". But here, having a team be awful for 2021-22... is a SMART, SMART move by Francis, IMO.).

[Hoopo]

congrats on 25k Pengwin, holy cow!

I am not sure about the 2022 draft idea. In addition to possible side deals coming later today, the team they have has a reasonable chance to not even be the bottom team in their division. They don't have a ton of firepower but they have so many 2-way guys and shutdown D that it's not going to be an easy night for visiting teams. They may be able to grind out some wins in boring defensive style.

[2014olympicgold]

Flames will acquire Pitlick from Seattle in 12min apparently.

[Hoopo]

I know it's only half past 1 EST but this feels awfully quiet

[2014olympicgold]

I know it's only half past 1 EST but this feels awfully quiet

Think like reverse trade deadline. The deals come in half an hr past the deadline. Trades will start filtering in over the next hour and a bit I'd say.

[rataylor22]

Seattle clearly overplayed their hand. They set their prices way too high. Doesn’t mean long term Seattle will be good or bad, but they lost out on a unique opportunity to leverage their position and gain assets

[tweetdrivr]

It feels very much like Francis is a little full of himself and his arrogance is already hurting this team. It also seems that he put Don Cherry in charge of his expansion picks. Maybe it's there somewhere, but at this point I do not see a plan or direction here and I certainly don't see success.

[Feenom]

I guess he wants as much cap space as he can get. There were a lot of “help now” guys to be plucked but he went cheaper and younger. But then he picks Eberle? Weird.

[Hoopo]

So this was basically Francis' first "Big Week" as GM.

We get some good and some weird picks. None of the big names and/or big contracts are taken. No deals. He picks his buddy McDiermid's son in one of the more head-scratching moves, leaving some decent LA players on the table in favor of a slow-moving face-puncher.

Follows up draft with pretty much no moves, even though we were told a bunch of "side deals" were going to happen at 1pm yesterday. His quote about why he didn't is "teams weren't willing to make the mistakes they made last time." What a horrible, horrible answer! What is McDiermid, then? Twarynski? Bayreuther? They left good players on the table, so these names sound like picks made as part of a deal of some kind. But nothing has happened yet? I suppose it's still possible but certainly suggests any deals made weren't finalized.

Again, this team might be decent enough to grind out some wins and finish middle of the pack. May not be the worst in the Pacific; I can foresee a defensive system with a lot of physicality. It's just boring, and Francis is not inspiring a lot of confidence.

[Axeman33]

Im still trying to figure out what the first line is. They did a good job drafting D, an ok job drafting goalies but their forwards are really not very good. I think their top overall drafted scorer was something like 91st overall in scoring last season. Francis has a lot of work to do to find someone to put the puck in the net with any consistency, and they arent easy to acquire. There's a few FAs who could help but man, this team doesn't look good offensively out of the gate.

[Hoopo]

first line of I guess Gourde, Eberle, Donskoi maybe? Yeesh. You have to think there will be some trades coming before opening night.

[Axeman33]

Here's another question. If you're a Kraken fan, looking at the draft, who's jersey are you buying?

[tweetdrivr]

Here's another question. If you're a Kraken fan, looking at the draft, who's jersey are you buying?

William Eklund

[Axeman33]

William Eklund

I think you mean Matt Berniers